My wife has just got a new laptop with windows vista but cant get away with vista and wants to put on windows xp, is it easy ?, any tips greatly appreciated thanks.

Gary, October 2009

Befor you do any fixing of your wifes laptop,you MUST back up all your files that have already accumulated whilst running Vista.To do this you will have to download a backup programme from windows 2000,(as I dont think they remembered to put such a luxury in Vista.!)Restart your lappy in safe mode(f8)and choose either to install windows xp on a different partition or format the drive you are already using with Vista and install xp once formatted and ready to recieve further data.if you choose the latter you will not be able to utilise any vista settings.If you choose to install on either a seperate drive or partition you will be able to use both programmes.You might find that you have to pick up some drivers using the net and microsoft windows site.Check device manager for all your driver faults.It isnt as complicated as it might sound,honest.lol.But you must remember to download a back up facility and BACK UP ALL your files,or you could transfer all your files onto disc or flash mem.Read up well and happy fixing,good luck.Fi

Fi, October 2009

Easy? Nope, not really. First you will need a Windows XP license, that can run you up to $289, depending where you buy and what type you get.

Then you will need the drivers for Windows XP. There is a chance that the manufacturer won't even have them available. Since you didn't include the make and model of the laptop that you want to downgrade, I can't even begin to guess.

There is no real "down grade" you will need to boot from a Windows XP installation CD, delete the Vista partition, then recreate and format the new partition. Next you will need to install the drivers for all the hardware (e.g. video, sound card, network adapters, chip sets, etc.)

My recommendation is DON'T DO IT! Unless you are a computer geek and enjoy this stuff, it's not an easy task. Furthermore, Windows 7 is right around the corner and you can upgrade from Vista.

Patrick McHugh, October 2009